This common argument has multiple flaws - including implying that the ancestors of most Americans were wrong to immigrate here.

In debates over immigration policy, we often hear the argument that migrants should just stay home and "fix their own countries." If their government is unjust, corrupt, or oppressive, perhaps the migrants have a duty to try to improve it rather than seek greener pastures elsewhere. In a related vein, Donald Trump suggested in a speech at the United Nations that would-be migrants should "build more hopeful futures in their home countries" and "make their countries great again" (though he, at least, did not claim that they have a moral duty to stay).

Unfortunately, the "fix their own countries" trope has serious flaws. Consider the following paraphrase of an exchange I had with a questioner who came up to me after I participated in a public debate on immigration last year:

Questioner: Why do Middle Eastern refugees have to come here? They should fix their own governments instead.

Me: Do you happen to know where your ancestors came from?

Questioner: They were Jews who emigrated from czarist Russia.

Me: Do you think they should have stayed in Russia and worked to fix the czar?

I don't blame the questioner for failing to come up with a good answer on the fly. Anyone can fall short when put on the spot (it's certainly happened to me). Still, the fact remains that the "fix your own country" argument implies that the ancestors of most Americans (and also many Canadians, Australians, and others) were wrong to emigrate. The Russians should have tried to fix the czar and (later) the communists; the Irish should have stayed home and worked to fix the British Empire. Donald Trump's grandfather should have stayed in Bavaria and worked to fix imperial Germany. And so on.

The fact that the "fix your own country" argument implies that the ancestors of most Americans were wrong to come here does not by itself disprove it. We should not automatically assume that every longstanding American practice was necessarily right. Past generations of Americans erred in committing such injustices as slavery and segregation. Perhaps they were also wrong to come to the US in first place. I suspect, however, that most people are not willing to bite this particular bullet. And they would be right not to.

The claim that immigrants fleeing poverty or oppression have a duty to stay home and "fix" their countries is wrong for several reasons. In most cases, these people have little or no responsibility for the injustice and poverty they are fleeing. Russian Jews like the questioner's ancestors were not responsible for the Pale of Settlement and pogroms. Likewise, today's refuges from Venezuela, Syria, and other unjust and corrupt governments generally had no meaningful role in creating the awful conditions there. It is therefore wrong to claim they must risk lifelong privation in order to "fix" the unjust regimes in their home countries. That point applies with extra force in cases where efforts to "fix" the regime are likely to result in imprisonment or death at the hands of the state. We rightly honor brave dissidents who risk life and limb to oppose injustice. But such sacrifices are not morally obligatory, and no blame attaches to those who forego them - especially if they have family members to protect, as well as themselves.

In addition, most migrants have little if any chance of succeeding in "fixing" their home governments, even if they did stay to try to do so. In most such societies, the injustice and oppression is deeply embedded in the political system, and most would-be migrants lack the clout to fix it. Had the questioner's ancestors stayed in Russia, it is nearly certain they would not have succeeded in reforming the czarist regime, no matter how hard they tried. The same goes for most migrants and refugees today. At least as a general rule, there is no moral duty to take great risks to attempt the impossible.

This point is especially strong when it comes to authoritarian states, where ordinary people have little or no influence on government policy. But constraint also applies, though with lesser force, to many dysfunctional countries that are democratic. Even in advanced democracies such as the US and Western Europe, many harmful and unjust government policies persist because of widespread voter ignorance and bias. The same is true (often to a much greater extent) in the corrupt and dysfunctional democratic governments migrants flee from. In most cases, potential migrants have little or no chance of reversing this dynamic anytime soon.

Occasionally, an unjust political system comes to a turning point where change is more feasible than is usually the case. But such situations are difficult to foresee, and it is wrong to demand that people (often literally) bet their lives on the hope that such an opportunity is going to come up soon. And even when it does happen, it is still far from clear that the average would-be migrant could make a real difference to the outcome. Not to mention the very real possibility that a revolution could result in a worse government rather than a better one. Had the questioner's ancestors stayed in Russia long enough to see the czarist regime fall, they would have seen exactly that sort of scenario play itself out, when the communists won the resulting civil war and proceeded to engage in oppression mass murder on a vastly greater scale than the czars ever did.

In sum, at least in the vast majority of cases, would-be migrants have no moral obligation to stay and fix their own countries. Are there exceptions to that generalization? Perhaps a few. Consider the case of the Shah of Iran, who fled his country after his regime was overthrown in 1979. The corruption and repression of the Shah's government played an important role in stimulating the rise of the even more oppressive regime that replaced him. Quite possibly, the Shah had an obligation to stay in Iran and work to fix the horrible mess he himself had played a major role in creating. Maybe he even had an obligation to do so despite the fact that staying in Iran could well have led to his execution by the new government. Similar reasoning arguably applies to other powerful government officials in unjust regimes.

More controversially, this theory could be extended to cover people who have no responsibility for creating the injustices in their societies, but nonetheless have the ability to substantially alleviate them if they stay. In my view, such people still do not have an obligation to stay in their home countries. Their nations do not own their labor. But the argument that they are obliged to do so is at least somewhat plausible.

The vast majority of potential migrants, however, are neither morally responsible for the injustices in their homelands nor in a position to do much about them. In many cases, they can actually do more to help their compatriots by leaving, earning higher wages abroad, and sending remittances to relatives who remain at home (a major source of income for some poor nations). It is therefore wrong to claim they have a duty to stay.

Rejecting the "fix your own country" argument doesn't resolve all debates over immigration. Far from it. Immigration restrictionists have plenty of other arrows in their quiver, such as the claim that governments have the right to bar migrants for almost any reason they want, much as the owner of a private house can exclude unwanted guests (I address that common argument here). But we can still make incremental progress in this debate by eliminating bad arguments, so we can focus on better ones instead.

Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time. Report abuses.

On the other hand, we don't need a post on why it's bad to bring every other country's problems to the US and inflict them on ourselves and our neighbors — especially people in disadvantaged communities who will be burdened most. Because that's obvious.

The fact that problems exist in the world doesn't empower you to designate various sets of Americans to solve them all. We'd like to actually live our lives instead of carrying out the mission you have for us.

we don't need a post on why it's bad to bring every other country's problems to the US

You are not bringing "every other country's problems" here. What we are getting is hard working highly motivated individuals who will enhance our country and culture. This has been proven time and time again.

Immigrants, legal and illegal, work harder than native citizens and start and run a disproportionate amount of small businesses. If you want to eliminate the people draining the economy, you don't start with the immigrants.

No evidence indicates this latest batch of bigots is anything special, its reliance on the charms, insights, and credibility and Donald J. Trump notwithstanding. America's electorate becomes less rural, religious, backward, white, and intolerant every day. I am content to watch time sift this because the course of continued American progress is predictable.

What is with these bare assertions. The actual data is not with you, especially in light of the actual achievements of their American children. Some are highly motivated, some join gangs and the drug trade, some do other things.

After that, the very extended family members? If they were energetic, they would have been the first.

I am the first person in my family born in the US....my parents came to the US (separately) after WWII, with their parents. They came legally, I recall my grandmother telling stories of how they would have to leave every 6 months and get a new visitor visa ... before they could get permanent residence. They later became citizens, as did my grandmother.

And anyone who comes to the US illegally, is by definition a criminal. We don't need to import any criminals, we have more than enough locally grown.

Your idiotic assertion that every migrant who comes here is hard working and motivated is bare. Les than half of dreamers speak fluent English. Barely half completed high school. And that's the second generation. We have pockets of migrants that refuse to learn English or assimilate into American culture. They often are lower waged workers based on manual labor. Yes, some are motivated, but nowhere close to all.

They bring no more skills than an average 16 year old. Use of public schools and emergency rooms means we spend more on them than they add to the economy. All the biased studies from pro immigration groups can't change that.

"You are not bringing "every other country's problems" here. What we are getting is hard working highly motivated individuals who will enhance our country and culture. This has been proven time and time again."

No it hasn't. Not unless you are going to argue that our advanced economy is driven by low skilled workers that demand government services as much as they do.

1) Deliberately conflating legal and illegal immigrants. This is endemic in these discussions, and, yes, is a deliberate tactic.

2) Illegal immigrants use fraudulent ID to pretend to be Americans, so as to access services they're legally barred from, and so get recorded as citizens in those statistics. This really skews the statistics, by boosting the apparent costs of citizens.

3) The Cato study adjusted for income, they're not really saying that immigrants don't use government services as much as citizens, just that they don't use them as much as equally poor citizens. This doesn't imply that importing more poor people won't increase expenses.

Deliberately conflating? Thanks for the vote that I was trying to deceive people.
I think it's pretty clear from the OP that we're talking about all immigrants, legal and illegal, though that gets muddy in the comments. To be on the safe side, lets look at illegals as well. Cato's got you there as well. As does the GAO.

2) There is no evidence of that happening in statistical numbers. See above.

3) You want to compare immigrants to the average American citizen? Their value doesn't come from their competing with the average American citizen, why would you make that comparison?

An estimated 49 percent of households headed by legal immigrants used one or more welfare programs in 2012, compared to 30 percent of households headed by natives
.
Households headed by legal immigrants have higher use rates than native households overall and for cash programs (14 percent vs. 10 percent), food programs (36 percent vs. 22 percent), and Medicaid (39 percent vs. 23 percent). Use of housing programs is similar.

Legal immigrant households account for three-quarters of all immigrant households accessing one or more welfare programs.

Less-educated legal immigrants make extensive use of every type of welfare program, including cash, food, Medicaid, and housing.

The overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants have modest levels of education; therefore, the high use of welfare associated with less-educated legal immigrants indicates that legalization would likely increase welfare costs, particularly for cash and housing programs.

Restrictions on new legal immigrants' access to welfare have not prevented them from accessing programs at high rates because restrictions often apply to only a modest share of immigrants at any one time, some programs are not restricted, there are numerous exceptions and exemptions, and some provisions are entirely unenforced.

"The study clearly doesn't control for class, creating quite a sample bias."

How can you tell this from a study you obviously haven't been able to peruse?

"'Less-educated legal immigrants?' Way to bake in your sample bias."

Given the question is about who uses government services, and there is a link between usage and the less educated, you're going to have to do better than hand-waving with accusations of sample bias..

"I don't know who did that study, but it ain't not GAO; it reeks of propaganda."

It comes from government SIP data within the last ten years. Your GAO stuff is from 1997 and does not include anything other than Federal Assistance: Food Stamps, Cash assistance, HUD, and SI. It does not include Medicaid and other State Programs.

"I don't know who did that study, but it ain't not GAO; it reeks of propaganda."

It was the Center of Immigration Studies. Yes, it advocates for constraining immigration, but as far as propaganda, remember, you're the one pulling stuff from CATO.

Sorry Sarcastro. Yes, they are deliberately conflating legal and illegal foreign nationals as well as not counting US born children receiving benefits that are a direct benefit to the illegal parent(s). A prime example is the Head Start/Early Head Start programs which are to provide child care assistance to poor working/attending school parents. These programs basically provide free child development (care) and are abused by illegal immigrants instead of providing assistance to US citizens.

You jumped to illegals, but neither the OP nor myself was talking about them. I know this is a hobby-horse for some, but that's not the question at hand.

This topic is about immigrants both legal and illegal, so it's less conflation and more you making a distinction without a difference. Except your hostility about illegals getting benefits, which is misplaced considering all studies indicate they don't come here for the benefits, they come here for the wages.

And as I linked the differences between the two populations are marginal so conflation isn't a big deal anyhow.

And generally, don't mix up children and their parents. That's how you get children in cages to punish the parents. Benefits to children in this country help children in this country. In terms of their loyalty and industry, I see no reason why those children aren't as good an investment as any other.

" In terms of their loyalty and industry, I see no reason why those children aren't as good an investment as any other."

Possibly because of the phenomenon that a lot of illegal immigrant families return home, for one reason or another. How does this make them as good as an investment?

Possibly because there is a morality to the idea that citizens and those that are here legally should enjoy expensive benefits.

"That's how you get children in cages"

No. we get children in cages because illegal immigration is a self-created human crisis in which there can often be no good solution for accosted nation. Whether that means releasing them or holding them, or separating them per the Flores decree, the problem happens because migrants break our laws.

Look at the jobs we need low-skilled workers for. Things like picking vegetables. Israel had the same need, the same solution, which became a problem, and solved it with automation.

Automation will raise the prices we pay. Which is to say illegal immigration is distorting the economy downwards. The family members who accompany (or join) the workers later further distort the economy downwards by using social services, health services and education. When the bad ones come in they distort the economy by increasing crime.

I'm really tired of the comparisons between the Hispanic and Caribbean immigrants of today and the Southern and Eastern European immigrants of 1910.

Main differences:

1) Average IQ of white Europeans - 100 v. an average IQ of Aztecs, Mayans and Africans - 75-85
2) Industrial society where no education was needed for well paying jobs v. a service based economy where the unskilled will not pull their weight
3) Basically no welfare state v. an expansive welfare state
4) a Total population of 90 million v. 320 million today. We don't have the infrastructure to take in more people. Our roads are at capacity with terrible traffic in every major city. We have fresh water problems in large swaths of America. We have limited power capacity in places. We're full. We don't need more people absent people who can fill a very specific need.

My Cambodian wife and I had a conversation about that as we were driving across one section of southern Oregon and Northern California where gas stations were 75-80 miles apart.

She said, "it's so empty here your government can let lots more people come stay here rather than make it so hard to live here."

I told her not many people live there because everyone wants to live in the big cities, and sure enough when we reached Long Beach the city was teaming with immigrants. 98% of them prefer a 12m metropolis over a 5000 person small town.

It's a stupid argument that the country is so big we can handle twice the population, if we double the population then we'll be tripling the size of our big cities.

Being perhaps sparsely populated is an asset to maintain.
Filling Wyoming and other plains states with immigrants might be possible, but how does that better the local, regional and national residents already in place.
Not every place that can house a person need necessarily be filled with people. It's OK to have a natural resource, space, and not immediately use all of it.

It's worse than just short-term disruption. Much of the US cannot support Europe's 100+ people per square km. If you think there are water shortages now, imagine the Phoenix suburbs spread across the entire South- and Mid-west.

True. And if enough of US residents want to live like EU residents, then open borders will be declared. But if we like wide open spaces not maximally filled with people, then perhaps we already have enough people. Or maybe too many.

But unlike Europe, huge sections of the United States are either desert, or very arid regions. Europe has no problems with fresh water. We do. The water tables in certain states keep dropping. In Arizona, it's set to become a full blown emergency at some point.

1. Time travel doesn't exist, so ancestors' choices are not relevant because they can't be changed. We are talking about the here and now. No one in the present has precisely the same situation as anyone in the past. Let's not pretend — or rather, you are welcome to pretend, I won't be joining in on the fantasy.

2. Focusing on "my ancestors" is a common argumentative technique: changing the subject to me so that I will answer defensively and we'll no longer be discussing the original subject. It's a very useful technique when you're losing the argument. But none of this is about me. Let's stay on topic.

Don't be tricked into arguing about yourself or irrelevant historical faux-parallels. It's not about you, and it's not about (whatever distorted view of) ancient history.

Because telling people you said something for the umpteenth time makes it true (and shouldn't be viewed as a dismissive remark of no substance). Even during emergencies, and medical triage, we "wait in line". There are millions of economic refugees who want to come to the US and there are limited resources to handle them all. One question, how many of these poor people in South America are you sending monetary relief to? Even better, how many are living at your house while waiting for a decision?

I traced my ancestry (with DNA) 10,000 years ago my ancestors migrated over the Italian Alps, settled in Scotland for 800 years and then came to America (among the first settlers in VA and TN). It's that "bad European" blood, we've been conquering for thousands of years. Of course we moved because somebody was persecuting and conquering us. And in "our" (my ancestors actually, I didn't have a say in it) defense, there were no formal immigration laws, so it was by definition legal.

And the Aztecs stole it from the people who were there before.
And Alexander stole Egypt from whoever was there before.
And the Romans stole most of their known world from who ever was there before.
Learn history before popping off about it.

You need to read some history books. Mexico, who was getting whooped by the Comanche and Apache as the Spanish ancestors, "Mexican's", moved into their territory so Mexico encouraged settlement from the US and other countries. As these things go it got political on all sides and everybody thought to gain control of more land. The Texican's (mostly from TN and LA) then whupped up on Mexico and became a country. They joined the US, and then the US picked a boundary dispute and we had a little Mexican War and took some more land. We then took car of the "Indian problem", civilized them. To the winner goes the spoils.

"Still, the fact remains that the "fix your own country" argument implies that the ancestors of most Americans (and also many Canadians, Australians, and others) were wrong to emigrate."

Okay. I read "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" not too long ago. I seem to remember many of the Indian tribes expressed similar sentiments as the US expanded across the continent. Would you argue that the Indians were wrong to try to resist the expansion of the US into their territories?

They weren't wrong - just look at what happened! If given the opportunity, do you think the 18th and 19th century Indians would be wrong to resist US expansion?

Incidentally, you do know that the "Native" Americans weren't the first humans in the Americas, right? That they came along, and kill/enslaved the previous peoples?
Who had in turn killed/enslaved the peoples before them.
And recently I've read that there might have been waves before that, so add another few cycles to it.

I'm accepting the implications of Ilya Somin's claim, something he seems to think people will be unwilling to do. From the Indian's point of view, the original settlers should have stayed home and dealt with their own problems in their own countries, rather than foisting an entirely new set of problems on the Indians.

Except when they came to the Americas it was legal immigration. The land was bought or acquired by treaty from the Indians. Make no mistake, the Indians were not a kumbaya, we all get along peace loving people and they used European expansion and the conflicts of European nations to their tribal advantage. Much of the Indian land lost was due to picking the wrong side in Europes battles and it was the practice that the losing side (Tribe and European Country) forfeit their land and assets. A good example is the Mohawk Tribe from NY which sided with he British and when the colonials won all Mohawk and British property went to the new government. Much of the land was sued to pay the soldiers who fought as most had back pay coming and thee treasury was bare.

Yeah, but that shouldn't stop you guys from answering his individual arguments. And yet you guys always end up with the ad-hominem and ignoring his particular argument.

I disagree with his larger position, but I also think a lot of the arguments he knocks down are indeed claptrap. And the comments don't usually do much to disabuse me of that notion, quickly filling up with personal attacks on Prof. Somin, RightWingGuy's racism, and empty appeals to 'rule of law.'

Sometimes arguments for your side are bad. Admitting that, and moving on to the better ones, is the better move. So why do so many on these threads keep acting like you're arguing from a position of weakness, grasping at every straw you can?

Not a bad question, actually. I'm not for open borders, so you're think I'm not on Prof. Somin's side. But I often find myself in opposition to Bob and Jesse's hostility towards illegals and sometimes towards immigration generally.

Research protections regarding foreign grad students are a whole 'nother problem, actually. Nothing simple in this world. But I take your point - it's a thoughtful one. But these threads don't generally go down thoughtful roads.

If you don't detect hostility towards illegals as people on these threads, you're being willfully blind.

More tellingly, these threads have a growing number commenting that America should stop all immigration entirely - close the border. I think you and I both know where that ideology ends; the GOP is playing in some dangerous places these days.

Somin is worried about the Ponzi scheme known as Social Security collapsing. Problem is we won't need more workers because automation makes immigration obsolete. So we end up with a bunch of unassimilable wards of the state who will bankrupt what they we're supposed to save.

You reason your way into a position, and assume that, because somebody disagrees with you, they didn't reason. But you need to consider that they may have reasoned themselves into a different position, due to starting out from different premises.

We need to explore the premises we're starting from, that's where we REALLY disagree.

Nativists reject the idea of, well, basically universal utilitarianism. They might see the rights of people outside the country as a side constraint, but don't accept that they have any obligation to affirmatively work for their welfare.

"Immigrants are better off for coming here." says Ilya, and thinks that ends the discussion. But the nativist says, "so what?" because he doesn't think he has any obligation to make them better off. His obligation is to his group, not the out-group.

OK, so, seriously, what would be the ideal immigration policy for the United States?
"Zero."

This guy posted he wants zero immigration. No supporting material. That's unthinking nativism, almost by definition.

You, with your premises and theses seem to be making an argument which is infinitely better.

But I think we're arguing based on different definitions of the same word.

Thinking Americans should get priority in American policy is one thing (I agree with that - utilitarianism is not our moral paradigm at all, actually).

But more and more people around here are making a moral case - a case for the inherent worth of the American born versus immigrants. That's as dumb an unthinking prejudgement as racism. That's where it looks like NormanStansfield is coming from, and I'll call out people coming from that position.

I'm not in favor of zero immigration, because a lot of people want to come here, and this gives us the opportunity to skim the world's cream, and why should we throw an opportunity like that away?

But I can understand the opposing point: That we've been flooded with so many immigrants over the last few decades, (Deliberately! It didn't happen on its own, it was in the teeth of public opinion, a deliberate effort to "elect a new people".) that we need a time out to assimilate them, and that we won't be able to do so while more are coming in.

I think we can assimilate them while letting more people in, if we're VERY selective about who we let in, and don't go crazy about how many. But I don't find the opposing view crazy, it's a judgement call.

"But more and more people around here are making a moral case - a case for the inherent worth of the American born versus immigrants."

OK, part of what is going on here is a response to the open borders fanatics' refusal to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants. This invites people to say, "Fine, I won't distinguish, they're all scum." Not a good reaction, but eventually people get tired of responding to fanatics with reasoned arguments that just get blown off, so fanaticism breeds fanaticism in response.

0) You are making a utilitarian argument from the position that we should look at economic benefit and social stability. I take some issue with your goals, but there are many on this blog who don't argue from that position. That's not a judgement call, that's bigotry.

1) Your idea that immigration was left open for electoral reasons is unsupported. There are clear economic reasons, and those explain both party's policies, if not their rhetoric.

2) Assimilation is going fine. There's a big middle ground between VERY selective and going crazy, and you're ignoring it.

3) I don't care what it's in reaction to, it's bad and the right keeps excusing it as they slide deeper. Once that bigotry is condoned, other kinds follow. Hey look, it's already happening!

I'm not into open borders, and I note why. But I'm also not threatened by that fringe since their power is shrinking not growing. When our executive starts playing with opening the border, I'll be worried. In the meantime, I'll be worried about the side whose base keeps chanting about a wall.

"0) You are making a utilitarian argument from the position that we should look at economic benefit and social stability."

If I ever make a utilitarian argument, I'll warn you that I'm making it just as an exercise in logic. Utilitarianism is a metaphor gone cancerous. Maybe you meant a "consequentialist" argument?

"1) Your idea that immigration was left open for electoral reasons is unsupported. "

Right. Democrats fought tooth and nail against any effective control over illegal immigration, proposed amnesties every chance they got, and all the while were bragging about how demographic changes would eventually hand them inevitable victory. But the former had absolutely nothing to do with the latter, pure coincidence.... I will give you this: Support for illegal immigration on the right was economic: Business wanted a source of cheap, easily intimidated labor.

"2) Assimilation is going fine."

Bullshit. Utter bullshit. If assimilation were going fine, you wouldn't need ballots printed in multiple languages, because legal immigration generally requires English literacy, and part of assimilation in an English speaking country is being literate in English.

The truth is, assimilation has almost stopped, because illegal immigration allowed Spanish speaking immigrants from points South to become a large enough percentage of the population they could get by without adopting the national language. They largely stopped assimilating, because they no longer had to.

Brett, your last paragraph is nuts. Not because some immigrants who have been here for years haven't assimilated. Many haven't. It's nuts because you suppose assimilation worked any faster in years gone by.

Personal example: My grandfather's father immigrated from Bohemia in the 1860s. My grandfather, born here, grew up in New Prague, MN, in a community which mostly spoke Czech, especially at home. Until he died in the 1960s, my grandfather spoke English with a central European accent so thick he was almost incomprehensible to most Americans. Had you met him, you would have denied to everyone that he could possibly have assimilated, or even been born in America. In fact, that's what I thought, until I saw his birth certificate.

Much of that background was all but unknown to me, because my mother was estranged from her family, except from my grandfather, and the family remained in MN while my mother moved to DC during WW II—where she was assimilated enough to work for Bill Donovan at the OSS. She, of course, spoke nothing but English, with a Minnesota accent.

So I was pretty surprised when she told me, when I was 20, that she hadn't spoken anything but Czech until she went to elementary school.

OK, part of what is going on here is a response to the open borders fanatics' refusal to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants. This invites people to say, "Fine, I won't distinguish, they're all scum." Not a good reaction, but eventually people get tired of responding to fanatics with reasoned arguments that just get blown off, so fanaticism breeds fanaticism in response.

First, individuals are responsible for their own actions and beliefs, regardless of who says what on internet forums.

Second, why should I distinguish between legal and illegal immigration when nativist arguments frequently don't make the distinction themselves?

For example, the common nativist argument of "don't let them in because then they will vote for socialism". This argument has precisely nothing to do with the legal status of the immigrants themselves. In fact this argument is even stronger when used against legal immigrants, because they are the ones who are on the legal glide path towards citizenship and voting rights, unlike illegal immigrants.

Based on my empirical observations, most of the nativist arguments are inspired by demographic and cultural concerns, and very little is inspired specifically by the legal status of the immigrants themselves.

"Based on my empirical observations, most of the nativist arguments are inspired by demographic and cultural concerns, and very little is inspired specifically by the legal status of the immigrants themselves."

I don't think you can really make that distinction, because the legal status of the immigrants themselves is not unrelated to their demographics and culture; The fact that some demographics and cultures are located so that they can just walk here, and others can't get here without an expensive 25 hour flight, seriously skews the demographic and cultural composition of illegal aliens.

No, Brett, the idea is, for the overwhelming majority of arguments on the nativist side, the arguments that are made are just as applicable against legal immigration as they are against illegal immigration, and in some cases, even stronger when made against legal immigration (as my voting example above shows). So when your typical nativist makes a sweeping argument like "I don't want those people in my country because they just are going to mooch on welfare", and then turn around and say "oh but but I was only talking about illegal immigrants, not the legal ones", I frankly don't believe them. I think instead that they are casting judgment on the quality of the immigrants themselves, both legal and illegal.

I've seen a lot on the left complement Latin America's reaction to past American imperialism in the area - an underdog story more than a socialist one. I would think you're be against capitalism if it were forced externally; don't get a lot of freedom there.

Not quite the same as saying Chavez is the best.

Michael Moore (as left as you can get, and not in a good way) goes on about Cuba's healthcare not because Cuba has great healthcare, but because for all that it sucked, Cuba still managed to beat America in this area.

I'm sure you can find liberals endorsing Latin America as socialist paradises, but if you think that's a mainstream of American liberal thought, you're just soaking in a 'the other side is dumb and crazy' narrative.
Same as if I talked about how the right lionizes Pinochet. I can find some, but generalizing it is on me, not them.

OK, so, seriously, what would be the ideal immigration policy for the United States?

Regulate immigration according to economic need, measured by labor shortages and labor surpluses—with those in turn measured in terms of qualified workers already here, not in terms of keeping wages low. Also, get rid of special visas for upper-skilled workers to come and displace for lower pay American workers in jobs like software development.

In short, admit immigrants during labor shortages—the condition prevailing almost entirely during past intervals cited in Somin's inapt comparison—and sharply reduce or bar immigrants during labor surpluses—the condition which prevails now, and which will likely continue for the foreseeable future.

Pay particular attention to the plight of America's black workers, who are the people most likely to be harmed by admission of large numbers of immigrants to compete for lower-skilled jobs.

I'll say this much: In deciding whom to admit, we shouldn't care whether they might be able to "fix their own country." We want to know if they can help out *our* country, and if they can, admit them to America even if their native country suffers from their absence. Boo hoo, you should have been a nicer country then maybe this person wouldn't want to leave.

People are not against ALL immigration and it totally disingenuous to assert that the furor over "the caravan" and activities along the border are directly related to immigrant phobia. What people want is legal and orderly immigration. If you want to seek asylum, go to the appropriate ports of entry, follow international law and seek asylum in the closest country etc. No country can survive if there is no means to control your borders.

There is no universal right for anyone in any country to demand, by the mere presence at the border, entry and citizenship (with all rights and benefits) in the US. I am a US citizen, I can not demand to vote and have the citizenship benefits of France this year and Switzerland next year.

Markets and economics dictate the conduct. If California determines that anyone in the world who can find some way to get inside the borders of the state of California, a living wage for life, free education and free medical for life, there will be people coming from around the world. There is not an unlimited bucket of pixy dust to fund free everything for anyone who wants to come from around the world.

Legal immigration is great. Work visas are great. People demanding to have free bus rides to the US border to have automatic entry is not great.

The real argument is that the United States is a country with limited resources and capabilities to assimilate immigrants. The last Gallup poll indicated that over 150 million foreigners would like to immigrate to the US, tomorrow. That would quickly overwhelm current resources. In the face of that asking to limit immigration is not unreasonable, and is practiced by every country on earth.

That being said, there is a point to the "fix your own country" argument. The point is that immigration (and really emigration) acts as an outlet for people who are unhappy with a country in its current status and rule. Now, often when minorities in a country emigrated (IE, the Jews in...almost anywhere. Or the Irish, under the British empire. Or other discriminated against minorities), they didn't have the power to change the native government. Or they had attempted to and been.....relieved of their ambitions.

These days many of the emigrants in countries aren't necessarily of a minority, but are of the majority culture, and are seeking a better life, and are quite motivated. "Sucking away" these motivated individuals...basically makes it so that the home country stagnates. The best and brightest who could change the home country, look, and decide it's better to leave, rather than risk trying to change things. And the kleptocrats in charge accept and celebrate this relief valve.

Bright flight has been wrecking America's rural and southern communities for generations. Do you contend that an ambitious and smart young person in West Virginia, rural Mississippi, or west Texas should -- or should be required to -- refrain from departing at high school graduation for a strong university, a modern, successful community, or both?

I believe in attempting to help shambling communities recover, even after the recent turn toward bigotry and backwardness in those communities, but not by requiring or encouraging any person to miss opportunities to improve their lives and society with strong education, opportunity, reason, science, and modernity.

I am beyond weary of having these vacuous justifications shoved down my throat. You say in your last sentence that you don't like "bad arguments?" This is the second worst post on this blog I've seen this year.

Bull Cow is a globalist freak. He sincerely believes that there should be no borders anywhere, and we should all live in a kumbaya one-world state governed by an oligarchy that he falsely believes will include him.

The corruption and repression of the Shah's government played an important role in stimulating the rise of the even more oppressive regime that replaced him.

Hardly. The Shah's regime was very liberal by Middle Eastern standards and he was overthrown by reactionary religious forces who resented his Westernisation of the country. The overreactions of his Army to civil unrest in the months leading up to the revolution, which undoubtedly fueled the fire, was a testament to the fact that they had virtually no experience of repressing crowds of protesters.

No doubt the Shah, unlke the average refugee, had direct personal responsiility for the state of his country prior to his overthrow, but his mistake - ie the mistake leading to his becoming a refugee - was not an excess of repression, but the excessive pace of liberalisation and Westernisation in the face of opposition by Iranian religious "deplorables."

He was hardly the world's most wise and liberal leader, but he was sailing his country in a direction of which Prof Somin would have approved, and was deposed for doing so.

Now all you have to do is:
1. Require any putative immigrant to demonstrate those qualities--say by having a sponsor put up a bond; and,
2. Pass a law that INS gets to tell these new immigrants where to live.

"Still, the fact remains that the "fix your own country" argument implies that the ancestors of most Americans (and also many Canadians, Australians, and others) were wrong to emigrate"

Emigration is, I would say, a basic human right with some conditions (ie, so long as you are not fleeing valid justice or debt). The Trouble is, Somin has never for me satisfactorily addressed how that means Immigration is also a right. Notice how he doesn't mention the immigration of these groups and the displacement of the native population in lieu of a new civilization and political structure? If he did that, he would have to deal with the morality of what happened to the Tribes of North America. Instead he focuses on the right to leave one's homeland and implies that another nation just *must* accept the migrant....because of some unnamed obligation....

" In most cases, these people have little or no responsibility for the injustice and poverty they are fleeing. Russian Jews like the questioner's ancestors were not responsible for the Pale of Settlement and pogroms. Likewise, today's refuges from Venezuela, Syria, and other unjust and corrupt governments generally had no meaningful role in creating the awful conditions there. "

I think this is just making a stew out of a bunch of different cases and serving it up as if it were a holistic argument. It also introduces a few howlers. Are you seriously saying a bunch of socialists and democratic socialists in Venezuela who voted for socialism are not responsible for their nation turning socialist? The claim boggles the mind. Granted, there are those who did not and do not support socialism, but the nation by and large voted for this.

To make an honest argument, you must separate the cases of people escaping direct ethnic/racial/religious persecution where there is no quarter given to those where people are fleeing the results of bad governance and economic decline.

"The vast majority of potential migrants, however, are neither morally responsible for the injustices in their homelands nor in a position to do much about them."

What does being "morally responsible" have anything to do with it? The Hitler sand Maduros of the World don't fix the problems they create. It is always up to the victims to fight back to make a better nation.

Europeans who became Americans fled, but ultimately had to fight the most powerful nation on Earth to get out from under its rule. France had to go through some very ugly, death-filled times to become a liberal democracy. Nations only become better when people "Fix their own country"

The problem for the United States involves the question of integration. Are the Latinos escaping Central and South American socialist tyranny accepting our Constitutional order and abandoning the ideals of socialism? Are migrants from the middle east abandoning the political ideas that dominate that sub-continent, making it the rotten abscess of human rights that it is? If not, there is the issue of preserving our Constitutional Order. Without sufficient consensus to uphold it, the US Constitution is just a piece of paper.

Likewise in Syria, how is it not the case that the political culture dominated by Ba'athism not create or contribute to the environment conducive towards the rise of a monster like Assad? Taking a glance at the makeup of Syria, almost everyone is some sort of communist Arab nationalist authoritarian.

Have you read a little bit about the modern history of Syria? It's had maybe 2 total years of not being ruled by a dictator or a foreign imperial power. So this culture seems more like "yay Baathism", but instead, "if you criticize the government you're gonna get shot".

Irrelevant. At one Time, Europe had zero years of not being ruled by dictators and theocrats.

Tell me, these refugees from Syria. Do they support the principles of the Enlightenment and human rights? Or do they believe they have the right force the beliefs of their homeland like Sharia and Ba'athism on their new neighbors?

When you take in people from other nations, their understanding of governance--based on prior experience--is brought with them. When you (unknowingly) take in 20+ million, it will radically alter the political composition of the nation.

I don't blame Ilya for whiffing on this one. He either hasn't really considered the counter questions, or intentionally ignored them. Either way, he's clearly a radical partisan on the issue--and that's okay.

These tired lines were aimed by backward citizens at Italians, Asians, eastern Europeans, Jews, blacks, Muslims, the Irish, Hispanics, other Asians, Catholics, different Hispanics, and others. The same type of bigots went after women, gays, agnostics, and atheists, too.

Our current batch of ignorant, intolerant, selfish, insular yahoos deserves no more respect than did its predecessors.

"People argue this, but I don't think there's any evidence that immigrants don't believe in American-style democracy once they get here."

Of course they believe in democracy. Democracy is what got them the failed states they are fleeing from. There is, however, no reason to believe they accept the American-style republican government with limits, checks and balances that we (nominally) have.

' the "fix your own country" argument implies that the ancestors of most Americans (and also many Canadians, Australians, and others) were wrong to emigrate. '

Mr. Somin, here's where your argument not only falls flat, but dies a horrible painful death. Millions of dead Native Americans, by way of war, famine, and above all, disease, would attest that the Europeans WERE wrong to emigrate. Or at least they were wrong to do it in the reckless, land grabbing manner that the Europeans did it. The tragedy is that the Americans had plenty of room for both groups, and it could have been done in a more cooperative manner based on trade, and shared knowledge. That would be the equivalent of legal immigration today, not illegal immigration.

And there's another problem in comparing the situation today to 1492. There was no clearly defined nation here, and no welfare state. The migrant caravan isn't coming here to carve out their own independent country and ask nothing from the United States, they are coming here to enter our job market and take advantage of numerous taxpayer funded benefits.

'Had the questioner's ancestors stayed in Russia, it is nearly certain they would not have succeeded in reforming the czarist regime, no matter how hard they tried.'

Mr. Somin, are you aware of how the Czar was eventually deposed? His government was taken down by ordinary people who staged massive protests that led to the 1917 revolution!

Of course they are. Latin Americans are the least proud people on the planet. They have zero shame or embarrassment in taking government benefits. My Russian and Polish ancestors never did take (and would never have taken) a dime. That was also true of Italian immigrants during the Great Wave. People of American Indian and African descent are not so constrained.

Of course they are. Latin Americans are the least proud people on the planet. They have zero shame or embarrassment in taking government benefits. My Russian and Polish ancestors never did take (and would never have taken) a dime. That was also true of Italian immigrants during the Great Wave. People of American Indian and African descent are not so constrained.

Additionally, let's try to look ahead further than the immediate time frame. If Latin American countries don't clean up their act, nothing will change, and these caravans will keep coming. In fact, dictators love this, because they have no need to clean up corruption, as long as they can keep sending their disaffected populations to the United States. I see no evidence that these migrations have done anything to help their countries of origin in the long term.

The fact remains that Latin American mestizo are genetically less capable at both creating stable societies and becoming successful in stable Western societies. Introducing large numbers of them inevitably degrades America. This is not a point upon which reasonable people can disagree.

Bull Cow, you ignorant slut, there is a distinct difference between those who established Western Civilization on this continent, and those who want to come here today illegally.

There was no nation here when Western Civilization was brought to the waring nomads who happened to reside here. There were no immigration laws. So those who were coming here to start a civilized nation, paid for it with their blood, sweat and tears.

The nomadic tribes who resided here (who were also not native to this soil by the way) didn't own the land in the vast majority of cases, as they had no concept of ownership. Those few that did, were compensated for their land either with pecuniary benefit or with the blood of those that they attacked.

There also wasn't a welfare State where people could come here and leech off the system. They either showed up and paid for their land with their blood, sweat and tears, or they died.

You are a globalist hack, a communist partisan deranged lunatic who makes false equivalency between illegal immigration and legal immigration, because you want a one-world government ruled by your communist brethren.

Aren't you missing a trick here? Conspirators have argued consistently about the importance of "voting with one's feet" when discussing intra-US migration. By leaving your district/state etc for another causes a tax/brain etc drain that increases pressure, through competition, to improve.

Scaled up to international migration, leaving your country IS making a contribution to fixing it, by creating pressures to reform.